I Saw Michael Jackson

Life is full of surreal moments. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what is a dream and what is reality. One such moment was when I saw Michael Jackson.

About ten years ago, I used to live near Borders in West Hollywood. Borders is a bookstore and cafe with an occasional performance by known celebrities or local bands trying to get a foot in the door of the entertainment industry.

Every evening, after my walk, I would find my way through the massive glass doors, peruse the latest offerings of books, magazines and music, fill my arms with a selection and scurry to the leather club chair by the window.

I was surrounded by books and music - masterful works; works in progress and works that baffled me as to how they were ever produced?

It was the perfect place to get away from it all and let my mind unwind into the abyss. For hours, I lingered in peaceful “readitation,” (reading + meditation = readitation) while the employees would start to clean up, walk the floor and announced closing time was in a half hour.

At any given time there is a long table by the door strewn with new books that are deeply discounted. One night as I was perusing the sale table, Michael Jackson walks in.






Now I didn’t know it was Michael Jackson until a few minutes later when I heard people whispering to each other, “It’s Michael Jackson.” I looked up and sure enough it WAS Michael Jackson. He was standing across the table, picking over the books.

He was alone. He looked just like he did in photographs, but a lot taller in person. He wore his signature black Fedora, black surgeon’s mask, St. Pepper jacket, white T-shirt, black straight trousers, white socks, and black loafers.

All I could think was, “Is he really Michael Jackson? What is he doing at Borders?”

By this time I had made eye contact with a friend who accompanied me that evening. I was trying to communicate with my eyes who was standing on the opposite side of the table. I didn’t want to blurt out, “Hey it’s Michael Jackson,” so I just kept nodding my head hoping my friend would catch the hint and somehow figure out what I was trying to say.

As my friend got closer, I mouthed the words, “Michael Jackson.” This was the period before camera phones so we couldn’t get any evidence, but my friend decided to come and join my quiet celebrity watching.

He decided to stand next to Michael. As Michael’s un-gloved bony fingers turned the pages of a children’s book, he simultaneously moved away from my friend.

He was like a deer moving away from a hunter. No one approached him, but he was obviously on guard. He moved to the end of the long table and tried to bury his head in the book, but my friend kept moving closer to him.

This wasn’t the Michael Jackson in 2005 that had been physically, emotionally, mentally drained and exonerated of child molestation, conspiracy and alcohol charges that could have sent him to prison for nearly 20 years, it was before that.

It was before he dangled his son Prince Michael II over the balcony of a Berlin hotel in 2002.

It was the period after the 1994 marriage to Lisa Marie Presley and after their subsequent divorce 20 months later in 1996.

This was long after 1984, when his hair caught on fire filming a Pepsi commercial and after he was rumored to have paid top dollar for the bones of John Merrick, the Elephant man.




It was the same Michael Jackson who has been in the spotlight since he was 11 years old. The same one who has sold over 170 million albums worldwide.

The one who is the double inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; once as a member of The Jackson 5 on May 6th, 1997 and once as a solo artist on March 19th, 2001.

The artist who won eight Grammy's in one night in 1982 for the Quincy Jones produced album Thriller, which became the biggest album in history with sales reaching over 108 million copies worldwide.





The same Michael Jackson who admits to being physically and mentally abused as a young boy by his father. In one incident, his father held him upside down by one leg and pummeled him over and over again with his hand.

One night while Michael was asleep, his father climbed into his room through the bedroom window wearing a frightening mask and started shouting. For years afterward, Michael suffered nightmares about being kidnapped from his bedroom.

I was standing a few feet away from a larger than life figure who I had first seen in concert with his brothers (The Jackson 5) at the Great Western Forum sometime in the 1980’s.

Though from the nose bleed seats, I could barely make him out in the small diameter of binoculars that I had to share with my brother. I will never forget how the music filled the venue that night.

He had such charisma. When he danced, it was as if stardust was sprinkled among us.





When he sang “Ill Be There,” I thought he was only singing to me. As he crooned, “You and I must make a pact, we must bring salvation back, where there is love, I'll be there...,” I was sure that it WAS me.

Little did I know, he was telling me in song that he would find me many years later. He just had to go through some stuff first. Okay, maybe that’s just what the naive version of me believed at the time.

True to his word, he did find me. He didn’t seem to recognize me. Just as I was about to say, “Hi Michael,” a man in a suit with a bag of books, tapped him on the shoulder and he left with him.

At that moment all the employees and stragglers ran to the big glass doors and all of us saw Michael Jackson get into the back of a black van with tinted windows as the driver sped off.

To this date I have not seen a celebrity bigger than Michael Jackson. It still stands out as being one of the most surreal moments in my life. Through his controversy, his star has faded and some of his fans have jumped ship, even I don’t feel the same way that I felt about him 20 year ago.

I didn’t see a celebrity standing across the table from me. I saw another human being who lives in a bubble. He wasn’t larger than life. I sensed a real tragedy in that he couldn’t live like the rest of us. I sensed that his spirit was trapped within the walls of a fame that was bigger than him. I sensed a Soul that was searching for a quiet place to breathe, to clear the karmic debris that fame brought him. A place in which we all deserve to bask.

Have you ever had a surreal moment, when you questioned what you were seeing, hearing or doing?

Why do you suppose it was surreal?

Has there been an incident where a celebrity has fallen in your eyes? What happened?

Share your thoughts.